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Ridley Scott Couldn’t Wrap His Head Around The Martian’s Computer Science The hallmarks of a Ridley Scott sci-fi film include characters trapped in bleak situations, who persevere against impossible odds to survive. This zeal to survive is an integral aspect of Scott’s “Alien,” while his “Blade Runner” is an existential meditation on what it means to be human. In Scott’s long tradition of films about human survival, “The Martian” emerges as a remarkable tale about an astronaut stranded on Mars grappling with the technological challenges that threaten to endanger his life....

Sid And Nancy Convinced Oliver Stone That Gary Oldman Could Handle JFK’s Lee Harvey Oswald Role New Line Cinema By Christian Gainey/Nov. 6, 2022 10:30 pm EST “JFK” is one of the most controversial films ever made, because of the alternate view of a major historical event provided by its director Oliver Stone, a filmmaker long known for his unapologetic brashness and penchant for highly subjective narratives. Stone is an outspoken critic of The Warren Commission, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone to assassinate the president, and he saw “JFK” as his opportunity to offer a “counter myth to the official one....

Steven Spielberg’s Bad Luck With Storms Carried Over To Close Encounters Of The Third Kind Columbia Pictures By Matt Rainis/Oct. 17, 2022 5:22 pm EST Steven Spielberg is a force of nature in filmmaking. He’s the highest-grossing director of all time and has produced countless iconic films, from “Jurassic Park” to “Indiana Jones.” Spielberg’s films are often big and exciting productions, bringing to life objects of childhood wonder in wondrous, adventurous films....

Welcome to Raccoon City’s casting Sony Pictures When director Johannes Roberts spoke to Fangoria about “Welcome to Raccoon City,” he positioned it as a “faithful” adaptation. Rather than focusing on Alice’s bioweapon antics, Roberts wanted his work to resemble the original “Resident Evil” video game and its aptly titled sequel, “Resident Evil 2.” With dual storylines tracking incidents at the Raccoon City Police Department and the Spencer Mansion, Roberts distinctly captures the look of the games — and almost their tones too....

The Prey Creative Team Explain One Huge Advantage Of Going Direct To Streaming Hulu By Ernesto Valenzuela/Aug. 4, 2022 3:51 pm EST Dan Trachtenberg’s “Prey” will soon be available on Hulu for the world to stream, with viewers finally able to return to the world of “Predator” since the last installment in the series in 2018. However, some fans have found issues with the fact that “Prey” is set to be streaming exclusively with no theatrical window in sight....

The Reason Robert Mitchum Was In Such High Demand As An Actor United Artists By Devin Meenan/Aug. 13, 2022 7:30 pm EST Many movie stars of the Hollywood Golden Age were “the strong, silent type” — Robert Mitchum was definitely one of them. That silence and piercing gaze meant Mitchum could play villains more convincingly than many of his contemporaries. He played not one but two serial killers — Harry Powell in “The Night of The Hunter” and Max Cady in “Cape Fear” — before the phrase even entered the popular lexicon....

The rise of the Asian American mother Sony Pictures Releasing The month of May pays tribute to both mothers and the AAPI community, making “Umma” the perfect flick to celebrate both. Mothers are often the subject of horror films, and with the recent releases of “Turning Red” and “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once,” the Asian mother has gotten a lot of screen time. Frequently categorized under the often offensive term “tiger mom,” Asian mothers on screen are often presented as too set in their strict, traditional ways....

What you don’t know can’t kill you MGM “White Christmas” certainly wasn’t the only Hollywood production to use asbestos and other strange concoctions as a fill-in for actual snow. A lot of those productions didn’t have the luxury of waiting for a blizzard to hit like the one seen in Quentin Tarantino’s winter Western “The Hateful Eight.” To be fair, the producers of these movies rarely, if ever, knew that the substances used on set were that harmful to humans....

Check out the trailer for The Witcher: Blood Origin Instead of tossing a coin to your witcher, spare some gold for everyone’s favorite traveling bard: Jaskier! Despite the limits of time and logic, it looks like Joey Batey will be delivering a new tune or two in the prequel series because Jaskier is called upon at the end of the trailer. Naturally, he’s covered in grime and looks vaguely alarmed by what’s being asked of him — the more things change, the more they stay the same....

Unnecessary ’localization' Netflix The original “Death Note” anime series is set in Japan and features Japanese characters, and it still became extremely popular with non-Japanese audiences. We live in an increasingly globalized world in which the cross-cultural exchange of media is delightfully common, and audiences in various countries and regions are often more than willing to consume content from foreign places. With this in mind, it makes the decision to whitewash and “Americanize” the characters and setting of “Death Note” extremely puzzling, if not downright insulting....

Those Walking Dead Movies Will Now Be A Six-Episode Series On AMC+ AMC By Ben Pearson/July 22, 2022 5:58 pm EST Back in 2018, as “The Walking Dead” star Andrew Lincoln left the long-running zombie series, word came out that the actor would be reprising his role in a trilogy of big-budget, feature-length made-for-TV movies. “The story of Rick will go on in films,” creative overlord Scott Gimple said at the time....

Titans Season 4 Trailer: Lex Luthor Meets The Cult Of Blood HBO Max By Marcos Melendez/Oct. 19, 2022 3:53 pm EST With three seasons under its belt, “Titans” returns to HBO Max next month to face supernatural cults, maniacal supervillains, and a very familiar face. In anticipation of its November debut, the streaming service has released a full-length trailer that pulls the veil over the jam-packed season. Among many things, the introduction of Lex Luthor (Titus Welliver), who finds himself at the center of the Cult of Blood, as well as the live-action debut of Brother Blood (Joseph Morgan)....

The Western marked Eastwood’s birth and salvation Warner Bros. The Western as a genre had been subject to revisionism since the 1950s, with outré works like Nicholas Ray’s “Johnny Guitar” and the original “3:10 to Yuma,” but the genre was fairly close to dead by the early 1990s. This was not the time to make a Western, but Eastwood couldn’t help himself. He’d discovered a brilliant screenplay by David Webb Peoples about a reformed assassin named Will Munny who gets dragged out of retirement to hunt down a gang of cowboys who participated in the disfigurement of a prostitute in Big Whiskey, Montana....

We’re Giving Away Yellowstone: The Dutton Legacy Collection – Here’s How You Can Win Paramount By Chris Evangelista/Nov. 28, 2022 10:51 am EST Calling all “Yellowstone” fans in the U.S. (and I know there are a lot of you because they keep giving prequels and spin-offs the green light), we have a special giveaway item for you: “Yellowstone: The Dutton Legacy Collection.” Featuring the first four seasons of the hit series plus the prequel series “1883,” the box set is arriving just in time for the show’s fifth season, which just premiered this month....

Why John Carpenter Doesn’t Watch His Own Movies Universal By Jeremy Smith/July 13, 2022 8:39 am EST When John Carpenter was eight years old, he saw Fred M. Wilcox’s sci-fi classic “Forbidden Planet” and said to himself, “I’m going to become a movie director. I have to do this.” He did it. Boy, did he ever do it. Over the last 48 years, John Carpenter has made at least six stone-cold masterpieces: “Assault on Precinct 13,” “Halloween,” “The Thing,” “Starman,” “Big Trouble in Little China” and “They Live....

Will There Be The Bear Season 2? Hulu By Shania Russell/July 14, 2022 10:21 am EST On the off-chance that you haven’t yet enjoyed the anxiety-inducing pleasures of “The Bear,” you should probably clear your schedule and start binging immediately. The dark comedy arrived on Hulu on June 23 and has garnered a very dedicated following in a matter of weeks. The series stars Jeremy Allen White (of “Shameless” fame) as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, a former fine-dining chef who returns to Chicago to run his family’s hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop....

Zoe Saldaña’s First Impression Of Avatar Was A Lot Closer To Alita: Battle Angel 20th Century Studios By Jeremy Mathai/Nov. 29, 2022 3:44 pm EST Wind back the clocks to a time before the original “Avatar” changed everything back in 2009, when the blockbuster smash hit first transported audiences around the globe to a sci-fi world they’d never even imagined before while inducing a debilitating case of so-called “Avatar Syndrome” among a not-insignificant number of moviegoers (and inspired a widely-circulated SNL sketch, too)....

Aftersun Review: Charlotte Wells Quietly Breaks Hearts [TIFF] TIFF By Sarah Milner/Sept. 14, 2022 11:55 am EST A memory, even a very happy one, can be tinged with sadness after the fact — especially when viewed in a new light. This is the underlying spirit of “Aftersun,” the debut feature film from Scottish writer-director Charlotte Wells. The project is clearly a very personal one (the director said as much at the Toronto International Film Festival, where “Aftersun” had its North American debut); the film drifts along at a dreamy, quiet pace, slowly unraveling its story about an unforgettable vacation, framed like a collection of memories held together by home movies, photographs, and souvenirs....

Clerks III Costume Designer Allison Pearce Expands The View Askewniverse [Exclusive Interview] Lionsgate Films By Jack Giroux/Oct. 7, 2022 12:40 pm EST Allison Pearce isn’t just a costume designer for “Clerks III.” She’s also designing for Kevin Smith’s View Askewniverse, not to mention Randal’s movie-within-a-movie. In a sequel that’s largely about the past, Pearce had to do a deep dive into the franchise’s history. And as to be expected from any self-referential Kevin Smith film, there are plenty of callbacks and nods to his previous work....

Cool Stuff: The Complete Mothra Soundtrack Takes Flight For The First Time Ever On Vinyl Waxwork Records By Ethan Anderton/July 8, 2022 12:00 pm EST Last year, Waxwork Records delivered an incredible kaiju-sized collection of vinyl soundtracks honoring Japan’s Showa era of the one and only “Godzilla.” This year, it’s fellow movie monster “Mothra” who is getting the vinyl soundtrack treatment. Waxwork Records has announced the release of the original 1961 score for “Mothra,” composed by Yūjui Koseki, available in its entirety on vinyl for the first time ever....